week 32

Monday was ok at school but Tuesday and Wednesday dragged as I had only a few lessons. On Thursday I had a sick day due to feeling frustrated, and I had a cold. On Friday the san nensei students graduated! The graduation ceremony is a huge deal in Japanese schools and is a very important and formal ordeal. All the staff were in black suits, white shirts (and the men wore white ties). Michiba sensei and Hiyashi sensei wore bright pink kimonos too. They looked stunning. The children had practiced for hours and the event went really well. The songs that were sang sounded really good, the brass band was perfect and the handing out of the certificates was actually quite painless. The speeches however were another matter. Not only was I really cold by this point (the weather is a matter I will return to shortly) but listening to school speeches in English used to be yawn inducing. Hearing the same kind of speeches in Japanese where I don’t understand anything was coma inducing. But I survived by recalling formal events from my own school days. It was quite strange seeing such events from a teachers perspective. At the end of all the speeches, songs and bowing, the 3rd yrs walked out of the hall together for the last time…this was really quite sad and there were tears from parents, staff and the students themselves. After the ceremony the 2nd and 1st years lined the hallways and the 3rd years walked along them for the last time. They left the school to a loud applause echoing through the hallways. They had lots of photos taken, and a few gifts and flowers were exchanged. I was given a bunch of heavenly smelling flowers from one of my elective class boys. It was very cute. After all the kids left we had a delicious bento lunch with various fishes, mochi, beef and stuff! We also had a divine – but naughty – strawberry cake, yum yum!

So…the weather. After getting sun burnt on Sunday, on Tuesday evening the snow fell!! We ended up with about 30cm of snow. It was so cool, although a bit scary to drive in. It was crazy how quickly it fell and settled! The snow stayed Wednesday and Thursday but the sun melted a lot on Friday.

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I went to the gym. On Tuesday I also went to Bruce’s to have coffee with him and Jill it was really nice and relaxed. On Wednesday I went shopping to buy a chest of draws and some drapes for my apartment. I wanted a spruce up after seeing Bruce’s homely place. I also taught English to the ladies from taiko that evening, and on Thursday I taught in Harue. Another full week.

On saturday i got up late and went to the gym. After i went into Fukui to pick up Jill, eat sushi and then we went window browsing. The day passed really quickly. I had coffee and a huge catch up with Becca in the afternoon which was followed by an evening in a club in fukui, where the best of fukui's talent was on show. It was a fun evening looking at the JETs performances and talents, tasting amazing food and chatting to some friends. It was a cool evening.

On Sunday I got up and went to Maruoka community centre to make soba with some Japanese people, organised by Nagata san. It was quite comical as expected. Nagata san- being the important organiser, didn’t really take part or speak throughout the making! However there were lots of other people taking part. There were ladies from tennis, ekiwae and some of Nagata san’s friends. It was nice to socialise with them. I also met the daughter of one of the tennis players, who it turns out lived in London for 3 years. Apart from being absolutely stunning and fashionable, she spoke amazing English and was uber friendly! Yay a new Japanese friend! After making soba- although to be honest I played with the kids a lot more than making soba because many people weren’t even trying to speak English anyway, we ate the soba. It was ok as soba goes! After this Nagata san had organised for us to sit in a room and ‘talk english’ for nearly two hours. God knows what he expected! It was so dull and I ended up once again playing with the children and teaching them some English vocab! I had fun anyway! In the afternoon I went to tennis and that was basically the weekend over. Once again, far too quickly!!